Kimberley Jones

Movie Reviews Only

The one-child era is still recent enough to exist in living memory, but that won't always be the case; given authoritarian governments' habit of rewriting history to their liking, One Child Nation feels like an essential document. - Austin ChronicleEDIT

In the Aisles has just the softest breath of a plot, but director Thomas Stuber paints a mesmerizing portrait of the grocery store's weird night kingdom and the surrounding community looking the worse for wear, post-reunification. - Austin ChronicleEDIT

My emotional investment in the story was pretty much zilch, but I marveled over the depth of field, the nuance of expression, the way shadows and light played on these plasticine faces. - Austin ChronicleEDIT

Oliver and director Ry Russo-Young (Before I Fall)... don't go far enough to mask the skimpiness of the story, which has been whittled down to Natasha and Daniel almost exclusively. - Austin ChronicleEDIT

Dumbo's palpable anxiety might prove too intense for younger viewers; this fully grown person may have leaked tears in commiseration. But mostly there were tears of joy, because movies can still make the heart sing. - Austin ChronicleEDIT

What I learned from Monrovia, Indiana is that I - personally - am bored by mattress shopping, City Council arguments over fire hydrants, and high school band concerts I am not obligated by shared DNA to attend. - Austin ChronicleEDIT

The film treats their growing intimacy, in all its permutations, like an objet d'art, to be turned over and examined, delicately, from every angle. When they're together, the film is electric. - Austin ChronicleEDIT

Poignantly recalling that time of life when we were first learning how to be our best selves, the film unstridently reminds us that the work doesn't stop once we grow up and out of the neighborhood. - Austin ChronicleEDIT

What keeps Outside In interesting throughout is the nuanced work of its so very watchable leads - especially Duplass, who spent the first half of his career behind the camera writing, directing, and producing film and TV with his brother Mark. - Austin ChronicleEDIT

The Death of Stalin never mocks historical horrors. Instead, the broadness, the outrageousness, with which it dramatizes the banality of evil - and bureaucracy, too - is what makes it so very chilling. - Austin ChronicleEDIT

These are full-bodied performances, with Peter's ardency and Gloria's kittenishness signaled in a hungry look, a wag of the eyebrows. Fittingly, the film's best scene needs no words - Austin ChronicleEDIT

That topic has certainly been batted around before on film, but what sets Phantom Thread apart is that it isn't an apologia, or an exorcism. It's a Valentine. The heart, after all, is our strongest muscle. - Austin ChronicleEDIT

A love affair is inevitable, but Guadagnino doesn't skim over Elio's prolonged longing, which is what makes Call Me by Your Name most potent as a coming-of-age picture, not a mere romance. - Austin ChronicleEDIT

A depressing reminder that Wonder Woman was an anomaly, not the new normal. Busy and boring and oppressively computer generated, Justice League screams we're back to business as usual. - Austin ChronicleEDIT

Though I longed for the same rawness, the emotional nearness of Short Term 12, there's something to be said for Cretton keeping the audience at a slight remove: The better to admire this polished, accomplished picture. - Austin ChronicleEDIT